Silent Waters has some plodding elements and the portrayal of Ayesha is a little conventional and melodramatic, but the fundamentalist charlatans are well represented.

| Feb 15, 2021

Puts you in the middle of the action and allows you to understand, if not empathize with, all the main characters.

| Mar 1, 2007

Leaden and dull.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 3, 2005

An interesting, if incomplete, picture of a community torn apart by religious zealotry.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2005

Swirls amid memory and dreams while reflecting how much is masked by two-faced rhetoric, and how overlooked the victims of patriarchal nationalism and Islamism are.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2005

By the time you understand the meaning of its title, Sabiha Sumar's film has delivered an emotional punch.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 11, 2005

As a moviegoing experience, it's a sadly slim proposition.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 10, 2005

...sporadically intriguing film that's ultimately sunk by director Sabiha Sumar's occasionally simplistic and melodramatic treatment of the material.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 21, 2004

Silent Waters means well, but falls way short of its mark of enlightening the world to the plight of South Asian women in this period of history. It just isn't believable enough.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 12, 2004

An indictment of intolerance, Silent Waters is a truly powerful picture, and of the sort that sneaks up on you and stays with you long after you've left the theatre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 12, 2004

The filmmakers provide a well-meaning, well-timed Pakistani portrait.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 8, 2004

Gripping and ultimately tragic.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 8, 2004

Although taking place 25 years in the past, director-writer Sabiha Sumar's debut feature has relevance in the world as we now know it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 8, 2004

A more nuanced approach would have better articulated their allure to impressionable youth.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 8, 2004

Stirring on religious and humanitarian levels, and very timely notwithstanding its 1979 setting.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 7, 2004

Sabiha Sumar's debut feature could scarcely be more relevant to Pakistan's present, or, given this country's history of backing such repressive regimes, to ours.

| Oct 6, 2004

...it presents an engaging and informative depiction of Pakistan's tumultuous history from an intimate perspective.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 11, 2004

The forcefulness of its message makes it a rewarding cinematic experience.

Full Review | Apr 19, 2004

This incredibly moving film set in a small village in Pakistan in 1979 explores the religious upheavals that turn a nurturing mother's life upside down.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 2, 2004

Silent Waters, in the New Directors/New Films series, is several different movies, and most of them feel negligible and meandering, until the film finally packs a wallop.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 31, 2004